Feedback Model: How can effective feedback loop be completed

4As Model for feedback, this model is derived from the book No Rules Rules By Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer. The book can be found here  No Rules Rules 

Reed Hastings is the founder and CEO of Netflix!

The 4As feedback model has 4 core steps

• Aim to Assist
• Actionable
• Appreciate
• Accept or Discard

The first step of Aim to assist provides the objective for the feedback, if the objective is not to assist but to find mistakes, point fingers or belittle then the initiation becomes negative. So, what entails is never understood well by either party the provider or the receiver.

The process or the detailing becomes unstructured and so might just act as a deterrent even when the feedback is relevant.

The second step is what feedback is provided should be Actionable this gives the utilization of the feedback, which means the one providing feedback should do a fair bit of research or should understand the problem to some extent and their should be some actionable out of the feedback.

If its not actionable, it means the dots are still not connected and either the provider has left some gaps or the receiver has gaps in understanding the issue and the feedback though relevant can not be well utilized.

The third step is Appreciate, which promotes the feedbacks in future and ensures the sources are valued. Even when the feedback is negative its objective is always positive, to make something better. And if the behavior is not welcome it hinders the future cycles from happening. And as feedback loops are always iterative, this step become essential to the success of the feedback process.

The fourth step is to Accept or Discard this gives the impact of the feedback, as there could be hundreds of feedbacks but some are relevant and some are not impactful. So this provides the recipient the liberty to accept or discard.

At times the recipient might get biased to accept or discard but the impact of the change due to feedback provides its true value and helps to decide, either to accept or discard it.

Behavior Change Model

This model is derived from the book written by Nir Eyal named Hooked. The book can be found here Hooked 

The Habit loop has the nascent version as

Cue > Action > Reward

The modified version which becomes actionable is the following 

Trigger > Action > Variable reward > Investment

In this we try to see how the Behavior can be modified or manipulated. Behavior is said have the following three factors

• Motivation
• Ability
• Trigger

So to create an behavioral change we need to influence one or more of the above three.

B= MAT (Behavior = Motivation, Ability, Trigger)

If we delve deeper into this,

Motivation acts as the first pillar for a behavior change, we can either have some inherent motivation or the motivation is generated through some incentive. So, incentivization should be strong and long enough to make it a habit else the behavior might be short lived or just reactionary.

If motivation is completely missing the behavior change is temporary and once the motivation is gone the behavior might get reversed. Hence, motivation is the key to initiate any behavior modification.

Ability is the next factor, if there is a motivation to change the behavior but a person does not have the ability to practice the behavior is never altered. So, ability in terms of putting the behavior into practice is crucial for the change. 

If the ability is forced with some external factors like running 5 miles during to training or practice, it will be short-lived as a person without the actual strength might just discontinue after getting fatigued. In the long run the person will have to build the ability to be able to sustain the behavior of running 5 miles daily. The person without the ability with energy boosters, medicine and pain killers might do it for a week but then it cannot change the actual behavior of running daily, as all other activities will get affected and the person will have to do away with the behavior.

Trigger is the final factor, when the motivation and ability are adequate there needs to be some signs that will help user to initiate the behavior every time. Triggers can be automatic or planted to create the initiation of the behavior loop.

This is the easiest of the three factors but only when the trigger is used consistently over a period of time can manipulate the behavior to make it permanent.

The Convince Model: How we accept things

If we are fully convinced of a matter, then we call it a fact. But what is a fact depends on three major factors, 

1. The end state environment: If the person receiving the information is ready to accept or reject or remain in doubt, because of several factors. One example would be education level of a person prepares him to accept more truths, distinguish dogmatic practices from actual beneficial ones. Another such instance is how at peace a person is, if someone is tired and exhausted after 12 hours of job, he might not be ready to absorb any information in an unhindered way.
2. The medium: How it reached you, were you searching for it and on researching you struck gold or a you just listened the news or it was delivered to you in a package as a information. If the article of information is published in a reliable newspaper or on a shady blog post, they might have different levels of convincing on a person. And the same newspaper might actually have different degree of convincing on two different persons because of their anchoring bias towards a topic or past experience with the newspaper.
3. The credibility of the source: What is the source, is it from a random stranger or a teacher or a scientist or a influential leader. At times we are unable to differentiate the source and the medium, but the source here means the real originator. If a journalist does a primary survey of the incident it is believed to be true, so we seek images, video and local people's comments to authenticate the information. Similarly a scientist running a model and publishing a result becomes authentic source. So, there is something called an expert in the field. But one big problem we face in today's scenario is a political expert becoming a source for health related subject, and without further validation followers take it as a fact.

Now breaking these factors we can have six filters as is described by Scott Adams (https://amzn.to/2FAmRRa)

1. Own experience

2. Close group's experience (family, friends, colleagues and classmates)

3. Experts 

4. Studies

5. Common sense

6. Patterns

We get a model 

 

Source: How to fail at almost everything... by Scott Adams

You can find the book here: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life